For all you online gamers out there you are going to love this! OnLive later this week will launch a cloud gaming service, and is offering a year’s free play to those who sign up over the next month. Through the Founder Member program(the is through AT&T), customers will get free demos for the first year, paying $4.95 per month after the 12 month trial! Buying games will cost between $5 and $60. There will also be three and five day rentals for under $10.

To start out with there will be 23 games that you can download, including Assassin’s Creed II, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Mass Effect 2 and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Conviction. Supposedly they are may more game that will be coming soon, including Alpha Protocol, Assassin’s Creed, Brotherhood, FEAR 3, and Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4.
All the games that you buy and play will be stored in the cloud on three server clusters spread across the US. This service will be a test of the cloud hosting infrastructure. The main point of the free trial is to test out how responsive the system can be in real-life use.

“This launch is just the beginning for the OnLive platform. We’ll be rolling out new features, capabilities and performance improvements, continually adding new content along with the latest releases, and extending the service to more people,” says founder and CEO Steve Perlman.

“Today we’re taking the first step toward a future where video game content is increasingly free from the restrictions of device and location, while showcasing the ability to instantly play the latest, most advanced games at the touch of a button.”

What can I say but FREE cloud gaming services like this are going to change the way we play our online games.